Category: News

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH(LONDON)
May 21, 2004, Friday
A festival crammed with delights The films in Cannes ranged from a
balletic martial-arts epic to a gripping family drama made for just
$218
By SUKHDEV SANDHU
This was meant to be the year when Asian cinema conquered everything
before it at Cannes. Korean pulp maestro Chan-Wook Park certainly
didn’t take any prisoners with Old Boy. It’s a dark revenger’s tale
about a wild-haired guy who is hellbent on finding out why he was
imprisoned in a windowless apartment for 15 years and who it was that
killed his family.
Violent, nasty and thoroughly exciting, it features gag-or-glee
scenes in which characters eat live octopuses and chop out their own
tongues. One terrific kung-fu scene where the guy takes out more than
a dozen assassins, a scene shot in profile and almost in silence,
will have had Quentin Tarantino (head of the voting panel and a huge
Park fan) in raptures.
More poetic was Zhang Yimou’s House of Flying Daggers. This Chinese
martial arts epic about a love triangle that develops between members
of the ninth-century Tang Dynasty and its radical opponents has very
little blood-letting. Instead, the fighting is choreographed with a
deftness and grace that turns it into a form of ballet. It’s rare to
see a female lead, Zhang Ziyi, play such a prominent role, not least
since she portrays a blind double agent. Costume and music are used
to ravishing effect, while the russet colours of the landscapes in
which the drama unfolds are both unusual and deeply lovely.
Coffee and Cigarettes by American indie giant Jim Jarmusch is a
low-key but delightfully droll collection of dialogues between
well-known and counter-cultural faves, mostly playing themselves.
Cate Blanchett is a feted Australian actress who is visited during a
press junket by a snarky, punky cousin (also played by Blanchett).
Iggy Pop pow-wows with Tom Waits; Jack and Meg White of the White
Stripes have a curious dialogue about motor technology; Bill Murray
works undercover as coffee-guzzling restaurant hand, before being
spotted by members of the WuTang Clan. Best of all is a double-header
in which Alfred Molina arranges a meeting with Steve Coogan to inform
him that they’re cousins. Coogan, in LA to hustle for Hollywood
roles, is distinctly unimpressed – until he learns that Molina is a
friend of Spike Jonze. The film is a tribute to the joys of creative
idling and ends with a nice touch: the slogan “Long live Joe
Strummer”.
One of the more subtle pleasures of the festival has been Argentinian
director Lucrecia Martel’s La Nina Santa. It’s an oblique and
elliptical comedy of manners set in a small hotel that’s hosting a
medical convention. It’s run by a glamorous middle-aged mother who is
attracted to a delegate with an unfortunate tendency to rub against
young girls, one of whom is his suitor’s teen daughter. Not that she
minds – she’s a languorous adolescent who wants to use the Catholic
doctrines she studies in school to try to save him. The plot is full
of false turns, and belly laughs are scarce. Still, as both an
exquisitely constructed strand of higher sitcom, as well as a
portrait of the tensions around burgeoning adulthood, this is an
attractive curio.
Made for $218.32, Tarnation by Jonathan Crouette is a painfully
revelatory documentary about the director’s mother, who was
needlessly given electric shock therapy for much of her life, and
about his own subsequent descent into drug abuse and self-mutilation.
Intercut with home footage, it uses techniques associated with
experimental cinema (split screens, sound distortion), but puts them
to unusually emotional effect. Sumptuously soundtracked by Nick Drake
and Belle and Sebastian, and executive-produced by Gus Van Sant, it’s
likely to attract big audiences when it’s released in the UK.
Cannes prides itself on its respect for celluloid history, and this
year saw a welcome showcase for some of the key films of the
Brazilian Cinema Novo movement of the early 1960s, and a great print
of Mehboob Khan’s 1957 social epic Mother India.
Also of note has been Wall, Simone Bitton’s investigation of the
barriers constructed to separate Israelis from Palestinians, which
expands into an urgent and deeply felt tone poem about the psychology
and politics of the Middle East. I Died In Childhood is a haunting
portrait of the great Armenian director Sergei Paradjanov made by his
nephew. Including footage from now-unknown classics such as The
Colour of Pomegranates, it will be of interest to fans of Russian
Ark.
So who will win this year’s Palme d’Or, to be announced on Sunday?
The smart money’s on Walter Salles’s The Motorcycle Diaries and Wong
Kar Wai’s 2046 (due to be shown last night, after a race against time
to get it finished). The strangest film, though, was Thai director
Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s wild and imaginatively unfettered
Tropical Malady. That, and Michael Winterbottom’s audacious and very
affecting 9 Songs, have been my favourites of Cannes 2004.

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH(LONDON)
May 21, 2004, Friday
Jobava jumps ahead
By Malcolm Pein
BAADUR JOBAVA, the Georgian Grandmaster whose fine win from round two
was given in Wednesday’s paper, carried on his winning ways and moved
to 3/3 at the fifth European Individual Championship organised by the
Turkish Chess Federation and the ECU at Antalya.
In round three Jobava overcame the dangerous Armenian GM Artashes
Minasian, a former winner of the New York Open. Jobava, 20, faces
another prodigy David Navara, 19, of the Czech Republic in round
four. These two are the only players on 3/3.
The favourite Vassily Ivanchuk is recovering from a disastrous start
and has won two straight games to reach 2/3. My thanks to Michael
Boyce for writing in and pointing out that Ivanchuk’s conqueror in
the first round Julian Radulski played a couple of similar games in
the recently concluded Bulgarian Championship.
The local boys Lenier Dominguez and Lazaro Bruzon continue to
dominate the Capablanca Memorial at Havana and have 8.5/10 and 8/10
respectively with a game to play. Bruzon is at his brutal best in
this strange game. Black is in desperate trouble after 7 Qb3! because
the follow-up g4-g5 wins the d5 pawn. The black bishop on g6 then
becomes a target for the white pawn advance and its absence proves
fatal as an exchange sacrifice creates a pawn wedge on f7 and total
white squared domination for the first player. The Bf8 never sees the
light of day. If 16Qg3+ 17.Nf2 and every black defensive try is met
by another sacrifice.
L.Bruzon – A.Ramirez
Capablanca Mem Havana (10)
Slav Defence
1 d4 d5 2 c4 c6 3 Nc3 Nf6 4 e3 a6 5 Qc2 Bg4 6 f3 Bh5 7 Qb3! b5 8 cxd5
cxd5 9 g4! Bg6 10 g5 Nfd7 11 h4 h6 12 h5!! hxg5 13 hxg6 Rxh1 14 Qxd5
Qc7 15 gxf7+ Kd8 16 Nh3! Ra7 17 f4 Qc6 18 Nxg5 Qh6 19 Bd2 Qh4+ 20 Ke2
Kc8 21 Nxb5! Rh2+ 22 Kd3 axb5 23 Ne6 Rxd2+ 24 Kxd2 Qf2+ 25 Be2 Nb6 26
Rc1+ Nc4+ 27 Rxc4+! bxc4 28 Qc5+ Kb7 29 Nd8+ Ka8 30 Qd5+ Nc6 31 Qxc6+
Kb8 32 Qb6+ Ka8 33 Nc6 1-0
Ramirez ) p p k p
7 p o b o
f ‘ p p p p p p p
p c n n p p p n p b n d A g p p p p p
Bruzon
Final position after 33.Nc6

Armenian ethnic leader blames Georgia for misreporting soccer incident
Yerkir, Yerevan
21 May 04
Text of S. Akopyan’s report by Armenian newspaper Yerkir on 21 May
headlined “The Tsalka events are presented in a distorted way”
The co-chairman of the unregistered Virk Party, editor of Akunk
newspaper, Mels Torosyan, comments on the Tsalka events on 6 May
[clashes between ethnic Georgians and Armenians during a football match
in Tsalka, southern Georgia]. He said that the local authorities and
law-enforcement agencies, as well as the central authorities in Tbilisi
and the Georgian mass media present distorted events to the public.
The reality is the following: after the victory of our young football
players, 50 or 60 Ajarians entered the pitch and started beating up
Armenian children. The incident took place in the regional centre which
is not populated by Armenians. The Armenians who were present there
went to the Armenian villages that are 10km away from the regional
centre and asked for help, after which a big clash took place.
The distortion of facts started after that. Tbilisi’s Imeti TV
company presented the event as an armed conflict and aired a video
report. But in reality, nobody was filming the events, there was not
even a camera. It became clear that the video report was about an
armed conflict that recently took place between the local Svan and
Ajarian residents.
Immediately after the conflict, the Ajarians went to Tbilisi and
organized a protest demonstration. And the police immediately
supported them.
According to Torosyan, this event is not the only one in Ajaria, there
have been many events of the sort. “Certainly, it is not a coincidence,
but a reality planned by the authorities, which aims to cleanse
Georgia of ethnic minorities. There are all grounds to think so.”
The current and previous authorities differ only by one feature:
“The current leaders create ethnic conflicts under the cover of
friendship, while [ex-Georgian President Zviad] Gamsakhurdia’s
government acted under the slogan ‘Georgia only for the Georgians’,”
Torosyan said. Incidentally, the chairwoman of the Georgian parliament,
Nino Burjanadze, believes that the problem was raised on the basis
of everyday conflicts and rules out an ethnic aspect. In doing so,
the authorities are trying to avert a possible wave of protests that
the incident might cause.
The police are trying to find weapons. There is a question: why was
there no investigation after the conflict between the Ajarians and
Svans and why were guns not confiscated? It was only announced that
the Armenians were armed. Torosyan thinks that this is also national
discrimination.
“It is time to talk about all the problems openly, it is time to raise
political, economic, ethnic and other problems, organize discussions
and make compromises to settle the problems. The time when everybody
acted secretly and hid the truth has passed.”

Armenian defence minister praises army’s role
Public Television of Armenia, Yerevan
15 May 04
[Armenian Defence Minister Serzh Sarkisyan] The cease-fire proposal
made on 12 May 1994 was acceptable to us. Although there are opinions
that if the cease-fire had not been thrust upon us and if we had not
concluded the cease-fire agreement, we could have achieved greater
successes.
Over the last 10 years, I have asked myself more than 10 times. If we
had the opportunity not to sign the cease-fire and to continue the
hostilities, we could have achieved success that would have forced
the enemy to ask for peace and solve our problem once and for all. I
have always drawn the conclusion that we had no such opportunities.
Possibly, if we had continued the hostilities, we could have
achieved some success, but to this end, we needed a greater amount
of weapons first of all, and we also had to answer the question of
whether our achievements would justify our losses. Apart from this,
the Azerbaijani army was entirely defeated, but unfortunately our
losses were increasing.
What did these 10 years of neither war nor peace give us? We managed
to complete the build-up of the army and now we are implementing this
work according to schedule. We managed to get a sufficient number of
weapons for our army, increase army discipline, educate our officers
and train young professional officers. We managed to bring our army
into combat readiness. We must admit that this is not only our own
assessment of our army’s combat readiness.
What the army needs to do today is to defend and improve the current
situation. Of course, financing is needed. But the most important
thing is the national attitude to the army. The Armenian army is the
army of the Armenian people and we must support it.

Cyprus, Armenian FMs discuss regional issues, bilateral ties, XINHUA
Xinhua, China
May 20, 2004 Thursday
NICOSIA, May 20 (Xinhua) — Cyprus Foreign Minister George Iacovou
and his Armenia’s counterpart Vartan Oskanian discussed Thursday the
Cyprus problem, Cyprus’ accession to the EU and bilateral ties.
In his statements to the press after the talks, Oskanian, who is
paying a working visit to Cyprus, said Cyprus’ accession to the EU is
very important for Armenia, noting that “we see Cyprus as a friendly
country, as an insider in the EU and that we can rely on its help to
further advance our integration processes with European structures
and particularly with the EU”.
Oskanian said the two sides also talked about other regional matters,
particularly Armenia’s relations with its neighbors, Turkey in
particular, adding as a goal his country has normalized ties with
Turkey.
He also said that the reason of his visit to the island is first of
all to advance and deepen the bilateral ties at all levels.
He added that he was extremely satisfied with his talks with Iacovou
and that their discussion was very useful.
On his part, Iacovou said Armenia is a friendly country with very old
ties with Cyprus and that their modern ties develop continuously at
all levels and mostly at the political level.
He referred to the presence of many Armenians in Cyprus that
participate in the economic, social and political life of the country
and noted they discussed various issues.
Iacovou said he briefed Oskanian on the latest developments in the
Cyprus problem, Cyprus’ accession to the EU and the prospects created
by it while Oskanian briefed him on the problems at Caucasus region
and Nakorno Karabagh.

Armenia rejects Azeri proposal to join NATO exercises as observer
Mediamax news agency
20 May 04
Yerevan, 20 May: The Azerbaijani side’s proposal to take part in the
Cooperative Best Effort-2004 exercises as an observer does not suit
Armenia, Armenian Defence Minister Serzh Sarkisyan said at a joint
briefing with his Russian counterpart in Yerevan today.
Asked by a Mediamax correspondent, Sarkisyan added that Armenia
had repeatedly expressed its readiness to send a unit for full
participation in these exercises to be held in Azerbaijan in autumn
within NATO’s Partnership for Peace Programme.
In turn, Russian Defence Minister Sergey Ivanov said that “this is the
first time that he has learnt about the Cooperative Best Effort-2004
exercises”. He added that “we take part in joint exercises with NATO
only if they are of practical benefit to us”.

Armenian lawyer reports mass arrests of opposition members
Aykakan Zhamanak, Yerevan
21 May 04
The leader of the International Union of Lawyers, Tigran Ter-Yesayan,
has said that the mass arrests of opposition representatives continued
all over the republic last night. A group of lawyers who assist him
did not manage to give legal advice to arrested opposition activists.
Ter-Yesayan told us that there were many cases when lawyers went
to police stations on request, but did not manage to give legal
advice to arrested people because they had already been sentenced to
administrative imprisonment. This makes us conclude that the court
hearings took place only at the police station.
Asked about his assessment of the mass arrests of opposition activists,
Tigran Yesayan replied: “Such actions by the law-enforcement agencies
are against the law. They are not envisaged in any law. This is
violence which demonstrates the authorities’ biased attitude towards
certain people, groups and even families.” Incidentally, Tigran
Ter-Yesayan is going to send information about yesterday’s arrests
to international organizations and foreign embassies in Armenia.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Russian defense minister says radar station for Russian military use only
Associated Press Worldstream
May 20, 2004 Thursday
YEREVAN, Armenia — Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said
Thursday that there are no plans to let the United States use its
Soviet-era radar station in Azerbaijan.
“I don’t foresee that,” Ivanov said, after arriving in the Armenian
capital, Yerevan, for a two-day visit. “Even if I had a rich
imagination, I couldn’t foresee that. This station is for the sole
use of the Russian military.”
The Gabala radar station was built by the Soviet military to track
missiles in the southern hemisphere. After the Soviet collapse,
Azerbaijan – which shares a border with Iran to the south – grudgingly
allowed Russia to continue using the station, which is considered a
key part of Russia’s early warning system.
Azerbaijan has sought to develop a good military relationship with
Washington, leading to rumors – denied by U.S. officials – that the
U.S. military might establish a base there.
Meanwhile, Ivanov said that Russia is pleased with its military
relationship with Armenia, which is host to one Soviet-era military
base. Ivanov noted that two Russian Il-76 cargo planes, purchased by
Armenia at internal Russian prices, arrived in the ex-Soviet republic
on Thursday, and that 600 Armenian soldiers were currently studying
in Russian military academies.
Armenia has historically looked to Russia as an economic and political
strategic partner. Their relationship has sometimes angered Azerbaijan,
with which Armenia fought a war over the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave.

U.S. helps Armenian police with training, Internet access
Associated Press Worldstream
May 20, 2004 Thursday
YEREVAN, Armenia – The United States plans to grant almost US$2.16
million to Armenia to boost the capabilities of law enforcement bodies
in the former Soviet republic, officials said Thursday.
The program is a cooperative effort between Armenia’s government and
the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of International Narcotics and
Law Enforcement Affairs, the U.S. Embassy in Yerevan said.
Almost US$1.47 million has already been provided to fund four
programs. The programs focus on modernizing police academies by
incorporating new training methods, providing a one year Internet
connection for police offices throughout Armenia, working to prevent
the trafficking of people and helping Armenia develop a modern and
independent forensic laboratory.
The rest of the funding, which will also support the programs, must
still be approved by the U.S. Congress and the top official in the
U.S. Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs,
the embassy said.
Armenia is a cash-strapped Caucasus Mountain nation with a population
of 3.3 million.

PrimeZone Media Network
May 20, 2004 Thursday
>>From the Book of One Thousand Tales – Author’s Short Stories
Chronicle Persecution of Armenian People
MARIPOSA, Calif., May 20, 2004 (PRIMEZONE) — In the early 20th
century, Diana Agabeg Apcar wrote a collection of stories that
revealed atrocities committed against Armenians. From the Book of One
Thousand Tales: Stories of Armenia and Its People 1892 – 1922 (now
available through AuthorHouse) reveals these incredible stories of a
persecuted people and their courage and determination.
Although fictional, the tales are based on real events that happened
during a dark time in world history. The horrors that took place in
the late 19th and early 20th centuries were largely ignored by the
world, permitting the Young Turk government of the Ottoman Empire to
cleanse Asia Minor of millions of Armenians. There is speculation
that this global indifference made way for Hitler’s Holocaust and
Hideki Tojo imposing force on many races in the Pacific.
Apcar never set foot in her beloved homeland of Armenia, but One
Thousand Tales reads as if she trod every inch and scrutinized every
face. The stories came from the mouths of survivors, who spoke with
Apcar after their arduous journey to Japan by way of the
TransSiberian Railway and other primitive modes of transportation.
With eloquence and vivid detail, she captured their joys, pain, and
unwavering faith. The stories describe locations that still exist
today, and a map of Asia Minor at the beginning of the book further
helps readers to place these historic and tragic events.
Born in Rangoon, then British East India, now Yangon, Myanmar, Apcar
lived her later years in Yokohama, Japan where she died in 1937. A
keen businesswoman, she assisted her husband in a prosperous trade in
Japan. She wrote 13 books, numerous pamphlets and papers that were
widely read in her lifetime. She corresponded with many noted
personalities in the academic, political and business world. Apcar
served as Consul to the Republic of Armenia, making her the first
woman to serve in a diplomatic capacity. This position enabled her to
provide assistance to hundreds of refugees fleeing Turkish and
Russian oppression, providing the stories for One Thousand Tales. The
manuscript for this book was discovered among family papers by her
granddaughter, Lucille Apcar, who realized the importance of sharing
these stories with the world.
AuthorHouse is the world leader in publishing and print-on-demand
services. Founded in 1997, AuthorHouse has helped more than 18,500
people worldwide become published authors. For more information,
visit
CONTACT:
EDITORS: For review copies or interview requests, contact:
Promotional Services Department
Tel: 800-839-8640 ext. 244
Fax: 812-961-3133
Email: [email protected]
(Please provide a street address for review copies.)